Long Live My America

The phrase uttered every summer, over watermelon and fireworks at family gatherings across this great land, has a different ring this year. We are faced with the very same oppressive tyranny our founding fathers shed blood and treasure to escape.

It is important to note that he did not answer “a democracy or a democratic form of government.” The distinction between the two is important and worth considering, particularly this year. In a “democracy,” majority rules with no protections against absolute and unlimited power. It was “tyranny by majority” that the framers feared could run roughshod over the inalienable rights of the individual envisioned in the Declaration. Jefferson, in particular, feared the excesses to which a mere majority could go. He said, “an elective despotism was not the government we fought for.”

“We are faced with the very same oppressive tyranny our founding fathers shed blood and treasure to escape.”

Obi’s sister, thanks for saying in plain language what so many of us are feeling.

Today, I think, many Americans are celebrating our Independence Day in an atmosphere of interior solemnity. Even as we pass around slices of whipped cream cake decorated with strawberries and blueberries, we are internally preparing ourselves to defend our liberties, knowing that the majority we face is nothing more than a bullying coalition of power-hungry self-proclaimed representatives of various minorities, minorities whose members mostly want nothing more than to be true American.